


French Suite

by Lirazel



Category: Gossip Girl, Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-02-01
Updated: 2009-02-01
Packaged: 2017-10-06 22:38:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/58503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lirazel/pseuds/Lirazel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I think that I think too hard."</p>
            </blockquote>





	French Suite

It's her mother, his father, phone calls and owls. It's _Come home this instant, young lady!_s and _You're a disgrace to the Houses of Malfoy and Black!_s.

She locks the window for him, drawing the drapes closed so they can't see the indignant flapping of wings or hear the tapping of insistent beaks against glazed glass; he rips the phone cord right out of the wall socket for her, silencing the shrill ringing once and for all.

The world recedes, and isn't what they both wanted all along?

\--

They stumbled onto each other in a hotel bar in Paris, one of those mahogany-paneled, silk draped, marble-floored places where money and luxury pad the rough edges and let the Muggle and wizard bump up against each other gently (_galleons and platinum credit cards? They're the same thing, really, and money is the one language everyone speaks_).

She was sipping a martini, jiggling her foot absently (_legs always crossed demurely, because the one thing she can't leave behind is the sound of her mother's demanding voice reminding her to act like a lady. Not even the tinkle of champagne glasses and fine china and the sound of French laughter can drown it out_) when he plops down on the stool beside her, a crumpled piece of parchment in one hand, a glass of something whiskey-colored but unfamiliar-smelling in the other.

His eyes are as jaded as hers, and when the concierge discreetly whispers, _Miss Waldorf, your mother is one the phone_ and she hisses back that she isn't taking any phone calls (_all this in French, of course, because it's a Waldorf's third language: money, then English, then French, and she's fluent in all three_), he smirks in a way she recognizes. She glares back.

\--

They end up in his suite because it's nicer than hers, and he doesn't let her forget it. Swapped stories of parental control escaped and bad decisions fled (_he doesn't quite believe that Chuck has anything on the tattoo on his arm, and says so:_ You've never met Chuck_, she replies_) inevitably lead to stumbling up the sweeping staircase (_he doesn't like elevators, thinks they're unnatural_) and locking the door behind them.

Thirteen days, and they barely leave the suite, room service and bad French television, long bubble baths and midnight swims in the downstairs pool, whispers of Serena and Potter and tales of those who were always there, every time they turned around trickling out slowly. He entertains her by turning her alice bands into jewel-toned butterflies and letting them flit around the room, and she teaches him the finer points of texting etiquette. They shed layers of clothes slowly (_for once, there's no rush, not even about this_), and it's several days before they end up in the same bed, and even more before it turns into frantic kisses and scratches gouged into pale skin by too much desperate passion.

\--

She's painting her toenails (_crimson is classy, not to mention the color of blood_), wrapped in a silk sheet, humming a French lullaby when he speaks.

_I think that I think too hard._

She looks up to where he's sprawled at the foot of the bed, lying flat on his back, one knee bent, lazily twitching his wand and making her favorite pumps dance a jig in the corner. But there are lines between his eyebrows that speak of intensity and self-loathing, a look she sees in the mirror all too often, one she wants to banish forever.

She tosses the bottle of polish away, blows on her toes for a moment, then flops onto her belly beside him, letting her hair fall around him, brushing his chest, his cheek, his forehead, as she stares down at him.

Know what the cure for that is?

_He tastes slightly bitter, and she can't get enough._

\--

The next morning they check out, leaving a trashed suite and a bill in his father's name behind them.


End file.
